Yet, the two will remain competitors with separate news staffs, according to WOAI's recently appointed general manager, John Seabers.

“You will not see changes in the products. You will not see merged news operations. You will not see reporters and anchors switching from one station to the other,” Seabers said in a phone chat Tuesday from the downtown offices of WOAI, which remain quite a distance from KABB's base of operation at 4335 N.W. Loop 410.

Seabers, who's also a group manager for Sinclair that oversees 11 stations in various markets including Beaumont and Austin, replaced Jackie Rutledge, WOAI's general manager of four years.

The change followed Sinclair's purchase of the S.A. station and six others from Newport TV, which was finalized Friday.

San Antonio's CW affiliate, KMYS, which previously was owned by Sinclair, was sold to Deerfield Media Inc. However, according to KABB/KMYS general manager Dean Radla, Sinclair has entered into a local marketing agreement to continue managing KMYS.

Seabers, 59, is married with two grown children and three grandchildren. He grew up in San Antonio, got his start in sales at WOAI and served as general manager at KABB/KMYS for 12 years before moving up Sinclair's corporate ladder in January.

“Here's the reality of the situation,” Seabers explained. Sinclair now owns two unique properties: KABB's nontraditional 9 p.m. news, which targets a younger, more mobile audience and is “one of the strongest prime-time newscasts in the country,” he said.

Then, there's the more classic news operation of WOAI, “which can compete head to head with the best news operations in the city,” he said. “There's not a lot of duplication between these two.”

In short, he added, “we can continue to deliver two uniquely different and targeted newscasts and expand our footprint, as opposed to running into one another.”

WOAI continues to finish third in the local news race with KSAT and KENS among English-language stations.

“We know we have a very watchable product. We know we have great people,” Seabers said. “We want to earn their trust and grow a little bit more inside the market, and we want to earn (viewers') trust.”

He characterized the plan to keep the stations autonomous as “extremely unusual,” not only here but across the country. “Normally, when you have a duopoly in a market, you use your same talent and same news resources.”

He mentioned a situation in Columbus, Ohio, where Sinclair owns “an ABC station and a Fox. The 10 p.m. news runs on the Fox station and you have a similar newscast running on the ABC station at 11 p.m.”

“But we're not going to do that here,” he added. “We're a company that likes to do the right thing, and in this case we think this is the right thing.”

Sinclair, one of the largest independent television broadcasting companies, owns and operates, or provides sales services to 84 television stations in 46 markets.